Hitler Forbade Him From Accepting It. He Got the Medal Fourteen Years Late.

The 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was divided equally between Adolf Butenandt, "for his work on sex hormones," and Leopold Ruzicka, "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes."[1]

Butenandt was not permitted to accept it. Hitler forbade German laureates from receiving the Nobel Prize, and Butenandt was prevented from taking his. He received the gold medal and the diploma in 1949 — but, like other German laureates of the period, never the prize money.

What the prize was actually for

Reading the two citations side by side is instructive, because neither says "testosterone."

Butenandt — "for his work on sex hormones."[1] The Nobel Foundation's summary of that work: he mapped several hormones, determined the composition and structure of estrogen and the related hormone estriol, and produced a male sex hormone in pure form for the first time, determining its chemical composition.

Ruzicka — "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes."[1] He had moved from studying the active components of natural musk perfumes to their chemical relations, and proposed that the terpene family was connected to the sex hormones Butenandt had discovered. That story is the perfume chemist.

Together they cover the two halves of 1935: characterising the molecule and building the chemistry that made it manufacturable.

Why the political footnote belongs in a medical article

Because it marks where this history sits. 1939 is not a neutral year, and the institutions that produced testosterone were embedded in the states that funded them.

The purpose of noting it here is narrow: to be accurate about the record. The prize was awarded, it could not be accepted, and the medal arrived a decade later without the money. Those are the facts, and leaving them out would make the story tidier than it was.

What was actually delivered

Set the politics aside and the scientific accounting is straightforward. By 1935 the field had, for the first time:

• A pure compound — weighable, therefore dosable.[1]
• A synthetic route — manufacturable, therefore supplyable.[2]
• An immediate obstacle — oral testosterone is inactivated in the liver, so parenteral routes or molecular modifications were required.[2]

That third point is the one that shaped the next eighty-five years, over which preparations were slowly improved until physiological serum levels could be achieved.[2]

Frequently asked questions

Did Butenandt ever receive the prize? He received the gold medal and diploma in 1949. German laureates prevented from accepting during that period could later receive the medal and diploma but not the prize amount.

Was the prize for discovering testosterone? Not as worded. Butenandt's citation is for work on sex hormones generally, including producing a male sex hormone in pure form for the first time.[1]

Why isn't Laqueur a laureate? His group's isolation of testosterone in 1935 is recorded in the historical literature,[2] but the 1939 chemistry prize went to Butenandt and Ruzicka as cited.[1]

Next in this series

With the molecule in hand and no way to give it by mouth, the next question was purely practical: how do you get it into a body and keep it there?

Continue with what happened after the Nobel Prize.

References

2 sources

1. The Nobel Foundation. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1939 — Adolf Butenandt "for his work on sex hormones" and Leopold Ruzicka "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes". nobelprize.org
2. Nieschlag E, Nieschlag S. ENDOCRINE HISTORY: The history of discovery, synthesis and development of testosterone for clinical use. Eur J Endocrinol. 2019;180(6):R201–R212. doi:10.1530/EJE-19-0071 · PMID 30959485